"They"re certainly signals. Keep your eye on them; count them."
There was a period of complete darkness; it seemed that the signalling had ceased. Then the glow peered over the tree-tops again; it was repeated at regular intervals, at first short, then longer, then short again.
"It"s like Morse," said Armstrong. "Did you count?"
"Nine times."
"In groups of three?"
"Four, three, and two, I thought."
"So did I. Well, if it"s Morse, that spells VGI. What on earth does that mean?"
"Goodness knows. It"s stopped. Wonder if it"ll start again?"
A minute or two pa.s.sed. Again the glow appeared, at intervals as before. Again they counted its appearances.
"Nine times. Three groups of three--longs and shorts. I make that ROD."
"Well, that"s a word, at any rate; and the chef"s name, by gum! But what about VGI?"
"Perhaps I was mistaken. We"ll wait for the next."
But though they remained some ten minutes at the window the glow appeared no more.
"A dashed fruitless expedition!" exclaimed Pratt, as they descended the stairs. "They used to divide science into sound, light, and heat.
We"re flummoxed by sound and light; it only wants heat to biff us altogether."
Before many hours had pa.s.sed they had reason to remember that almost prophetic utterance of Pratt"s. It was his turn again to take the middle watch, and at eleven-forty Armstrong wakened him.
"Hang you, Jack!" he cried. "I was dreaming I was blowing fire-balloons out of an organ pipe, and I wanted to see the end of it. All serene?"
"Not a mouse stirring."
"Well, the air doesn"t bite shrewdly. I cap your quotation, you see.
It"s a warm sou"wester. Can you hear that sound?"
"Just faintly. I say, I believe I understand that signal. I"ve been thinking it over. I"ve had no particular practice in reading signals; perhaps the fellow signalling is a novice, too. In that case one or other of us might easily make a mistake. It"s clear he made three letters each time; I fancy they weren"t either VGI or ROD."
"What then?"
"S.O.S."
"What-ho! The signal of distress at sea. But, I say, this is on land, old man."
"Yes; but I take it that it"s a signal for help that any one knowing Morse might make."
"But who wants help? In my uncle"s grounds? Wait a jiff. It was in the direction of the house. I have it! What a pudding-head I am! Of course, Rod"s wife. You remember she tried to signal to you and Phil.
She"s in trouble. She"s being ill-treated, or something. She"s calling for help. We"re to be knights-errant--Perseus rescuing Andromeda----"
"Oh, shut up! Is it likely that an innkeeper"s sister would know Morse?"
"Mark my words, I"m right. A woman knows everything she wants to. Turn in, old chap. I wanted something to keep me awake, and I"ll cogitate a plan for rescuing Molly Andromeda from the jaws of the Minotaur."
Pratt, however, found that cogitation was an ineffectual preventive against drowsiness. Three disturbed nights in succession was an experience unknown to him heretofore. He paced about for a little, sat down and lit a cigarette, dozed over it, started up and walked again.
Once more he sat down, ruminated, nodded--and presently awoke, sniffing.
What was that smell of burning? He looked on the ground, where the half-smoked cigarette lay. It was dead. He got up. The smell was in the air. He took a few steps, looking around. His eye caught a flicker of flame to windward--two, three flickers some yards apart. For a moment his drowsy intelligence failed to respond to his senses; for a moment only. Then he shouted--
"Hi, you fellows! Fire! Fire!"
Already the flickers had been whipped by the wind into a wall of flame, advancing with a hiss and low roar from the thicket across the little clearing. The heat of the last few days had dried the gra.s.s, which, though much trampled around the tent, was still long. The fire swept over it like a ruddy tide. Smoke surged across the open s.p.a.ce; twigs and leaves crackled in the surrounding thicket. When Armstrong and Warrender, awakened by the shouts, the reck, the roar and crackle, tumbled out in their pyjamas, they choked and spluttered and fell back before the intolerable heat and smother.
It was only too clear that the camp was doomed. There was not time to lower the tent. They rescued what they could. Armstrong dashed into the tent, and returned dragging the three Gladstones that held their clothes. Pratt caught up a petrol can and his banjo; Warrender secured his razor-case and sponge-bag. Driven by the remorseless flames, they retreated hurriedly towards the river, working round to the right until they arrived at a spot on the bank that lay out of the course of the wind. There they stood, coughing, watching the scene, fascinated.
Springing from the south-west, the fire raced across the island, like a giant cutting with blazing scythe a path through the tough undergrowth.
There was nothing to stay its advance. The low flames danced beneath the trees, red goblins in a dust of smoke, twigs and branches crackling, the sappy wood adding rather to the smother than to the blaze.
"Sound, light, and heat!" murmured Pratt. "What a magnificent spectacle!"
"We"ve paid pretty dearly for our tickets!" said Armstrong, morosely.
"And some one shall pay pretty dearly before I"ve done with them!" cried Warrender. "We"re homeless. We"d better run up to the Ferry Inn, and get Rogers to bed us."
"We"ll be the talk of the village for a hundred years," said Pratt.
"We"ll pa.s.s into legend; future ages will tell of the three magicians who exorcised the spooks of No Man"s Island with fire."
"Come and help shove off the boat," said Warrender. "We"ve still got that, thank goodness!"
The fire had burnt itself out at the north-east of the island by the time the boat pa.s.sed. At the ferry was a.s.sembled a crowd of the natives. Rogers was in the act of setting off in Fisherman Drew"s boat, along with Blevins, Hardstone, the village constable, and one or two more.
"Praise be!" exclaimed the innkeeper, as the motor-boat ran alongside the stage. "I was afeared as you young gentlemen might be cinders."
"We"re only smoked at present, dry-cured," said Pratt. "Saved our bacon, you see."
"I want to know summat about this," said the constable. "I"ll have to make a report. If so be you set fire to that there island, with the terrible destruction of growing trees, I won"t say but "twill be brought in arson, and that"s five years" penal. Which one of you was it chucked down the match?"
"My dear good man," said Pratt, blandly, "we"re only too anxious to give every a.s.sistance to the officer of the law; but, as you see, we"re in a great state of nervous agitation. D"you think Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in a condition to answer questions after their experience of the fiery furnace? Abed we go, if Mr. Rogers will oblige us. Come up in the morning, constable; you"re all losing your beauty sleep. In the morning we"ll swear affidavits, or whatever it is you want. To-night we"re too tired even to swear. Good-night."
CHAPTER XIV
A CIRCULAR TOUR
Fatigued though they were, the boys lay long awake in the room Mrs.
Rogers provided for them, discussing the situation into which they had been thrown by the fire, and their plans for the future. They had saved next to nothing but their clothes. If they were to start another camp a new tent--almost a complete new outfit--would be necessary. Pratt suggested that they should accept Mr. Crawshay"s offer and take up their abode with him until the mystery of the island had been solved; but this idea was opposed by the others, Armstrong in particular pointing out that they would stand a better chance of success if they remained more closely in touch with their former encampment.